Possession, Demoniacal And Other

Among Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern

T K Oesterreich, Oesterreich, T K

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136304361
• Topic: Medizin
• Subtopic: Gesundheitsversorgung

This is Volume III of six in a series on Anthropology and Psychology. Originally published in 1930, this collection of papers looks at possession, demonical and other, among primitive races, in antiquity, the Middle Ages and modern times.

PART I

THE NATURE OF THE STATE OF POSSESSION

INTRODUCTION

THE CONSTANT NATURE OF POSSESSION THROUGHOUT THE AGES

THE book affording to us inhabitants of the European zone of culture our earliest glimpse of the states called “possession”¹ is the New Testament. Bible stories often give, in fact, an accurate picture of these states, which were extremely frequent in the latter days of the ancient world. To the authors of the New Testament they were evidently very familiar, and their accounts, even should they be recognized as of little or no historical value, bear in themselves the stamp of truth. They are pictures of typical states exactly reproduced.²

The following are a few quotations to refresh the reader’s memory:

And as soon as he stepped out of the boat a man from the tombs came to meet him, a man with an unclean spirit who dwelt among the tombs; by this time no one could bind him, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with fetters and chains and had snapped the chains and broken the fetters—nobody could tame him. All night and day among the tombs and the hills he shrieked and gashed himself with stones. On catching sight of Jesus from afar he ran and knelt before him, shrieking aloud, “Jesus, son of God most High, what business have you with me? By God, I adjure you, do not torture me.” (For he had said, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.”) Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “Legion,” he said, “there is a host of us.” And they begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country (Mark v 2–10).

I will pass over the rest of the passage, the alleged entry of the devils into a herd of swine. The same story is to be found in Matthew vii 28–33 and in Luke viii 26–39.

Some strolling Jewish exorcists also undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying: “I adjure you to the Jesus whom Paul preaches!” The seven sons of Sceuas, a Jewish high priest, used to do this. But the evil spirit retorted, “Jesus I know and Paul I know, but you—who are you?” And the man in whom the evil spirit resided leapt at them, overpowered them all, and belaboured them, till they rushed out of the house stripped and wounded (Acts xix 13–16).¹

Now there was a man with an unclean spirit in their synagogue, who at once shrieked out, “Jesus of Nazaret, what business have you with us? Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are, you are God’s holy One.” But Jesus checked it; “Be quiet,” he said, “come out of him.” And after convulsing him the unclean spirit did come out of him with a loud cry (Mark i 23–27).

A man from the crowd answered him. “Teacher, I brought my son to you; he has a dumb spirit, and whenever it seizes him it throws him down, and he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth. He is wasting away with it; so I told your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” He answered them, “O faithless generation, how long must I still be with you? How long have I to bear with you? Bring him to me.” So they brought the boy to him, and when the spirit saw Jesus it at once convulsed the boy; he fell on the ground and rolled about foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked his father, “How long has he been like this?” “From childhood,” he said; “it has thrown him into fire and water many a time, to destroy him. If you can do anything, do help us, do have pity on us.” Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! Anything can be done for one who believes.” At once the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief.” Now as Jesus saw that a crowd was rapidly gathering, he checked the unclean spirit. “Deaf and dumb spirit,” he said, “leave him, I command you, and never enter him again.” And it did come out, after shrieking aloud and convulsing him violently. The child turned like a corpse, so that most people said, “he is dead”; but, taking his hands, Jesus raised him and he got up (Mark ix 17–27. Same story in Matthew xvii 14–21, and Luke ix 35–45).

Then a blind and dumb demoniac was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the dumb man spoke and saw (Matt. xii 22).

When he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, there was a woman who for eighteen years had suffered weakness from an evil spirit; indeed she was bent double and quite unable to raise herself. Jesus noticed her and called to her, “Woman, you are released from your weakness.” He laid his hands on her, and instantly she became erect and glorified God (Luke xiii 10–13).

Comparing these brief stories with accounts of the phenomena of possession in later times, we find what may be described as the perfect similarity of the facts extremely surprising, while our respect for the historic truth of the Gospels is enhanced to an extraordinary degree. Excluding the story of the herd of swine, the narratives are of an entirely realistic and objective character. In particular the succinct accounts of Jesus’ relation to these events, his success and failure together with that of his disciples, as well as the particulars of his cures,¹ coincide so exactly with what we know of these states from the point of view of present-day psychology, that it is impossible to avoid the impression that we are dealing with a tradition which is veracious.

In order to show the constant nature of the phenomena of possession throughout the ages and to vindicate the importance of these various quotations, we will place side by side with the extracts from the New Testament several cases from more recent times. It would be easy to count them by dozens and even by hundreds. The lives of the saints of the Catholic Church as related in the Acta Sanctorum, are full of stories of possession and its cure. But it is not only in Christian literature that such facts are described, it is also in that of non-Christian antiquity.

Let us first take the Greek world. Here, by way of example, is an extract from a dialogue of Lucian (born A.D. 125):

I should like to ask you, then, what you think of those who deliver demoniacs from their terrors and who publicly conjure phantoms. I need not recall to you the master of this art, the famous Syrian of Palestine, everyone already knows this remarkable man who in the case of people falling down at the sight of the moon, rolling their eyes and foaming at the mouth, calls on them to stand up and sends them back home whole and free from their infirmity, for which he charges a large sum each time. When he is with sick persons he asks them how the devil entered into them; the patient remains silent, but the devil replies, in Greek or a barbarian tongue, and says what he is, whence he comes, and how he has entered into the man’s body: this is the moment chosen to conjure him to come forth; if he resist, the Syrian threatens him and finally drives him out.¹

At the beginning of the third century A.D. the Greek sophist, Flavius Philostratus, in his biography of the ascetic and thaumaturge Apollonius of Tyana, compiled at the request of the wife of Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, a Syrian full of wit and beauty (A. Furtwängler), relates the following:

… These discourses were interrupted by the arrival of the messenger. He brought with him Indians who implored the aid of the Wise Men. He presented to them a poor woman who commended her son to them; he was, she said, sixteen years old, and for two years had been possessed by an evil and lying demon. “On what grounds do you believe this?” asked one of the Sages. “He is,” said she, “of particularly pleasing appearance; therefore, the demon loves him; he does not leave him the use of his reason, but prevents him from going to school, from learning to shoot with the bow, and even from remaining in the house; he drags him away into desolate places. The boy no longer even has his own voice; he utters deep and grave sounds like a grown man. The eyes with which he looks forth are not his eyes. All this afflicts me deeply, I rend my bosom and seek to bring back my child, but he does not recognize me. As I was preparing to come here, (and I have thought of it already for a year past), the demon revealed himself to me by the mouth of my child. He declared to me that he is the spirit of a man killed in war who died loving his wife. But his wife having defiled his couch three days after his death by a new marriage, he came to loathe the love of women and has diverted all his passion on to this child. He promised me, if I consented not to denounce him before you, to do much good to my son. These promises tempted me for a little while, but now for a long time past he has been the sole master in my house, where he thinks of nothing but mischief and deceit.”

The Sage asked her if the child was there. “No,” replied the mother. “I did all that I could to bring him; but the demon threatens to throw him into gulfs, over precipices, in a word to slay him if I accuse him (the demon) before you.” “Be at peace,” said the Sage; “he will not slay your child when he has read this.” And he drew from his bosom a letter which he gave to this woman. The letter was addressed to the demon and contained the most terrible threats towards him.¹

A Christian author of the following century, Cyril of Jerusalem, gives the following general description of possession:

… the unclean devil, when he comes upon the soul of a man … comes like a wolf upon a sheep, ravening for blood and ready to devour. His presence is most cruel; the sense of it most oppressive; the mind is darkened: his attack is an injustice also, and the usurpation of another’s possession. For he tyrannically uses another’s body, another’s instruments, as his own property; he throws down him who stands upright (for he is akin to him who fell from heaven); he perverts the tongue and distorts the lips. Foam comes instead of words; the man is filled with darkness; his eye is open yet his soul sees not through it; and the miserable man quivers convulsively before his death.²

Zeno of Verona (died c. 375) writes in precisely the same manner:

But we, my brethren, who do not give ourselves over to conjectures of the mind, but are taught by God himself …, we cannot so much lay claim that the souls of the dead live as rather prove it by manifest facts. For the impure spirits of both sexes which prowl hither and thither, make their way by deceitful flatteries or by violence into the bodies of living men and make their habitation there: they seek refuge there while holding them in a bondage of corruption. But as soon as we enter into the field of the divine combat (exorcism) and begin to drive them forth with the arrow of the holy name of Jesus, then thou mayest take pity on the other—when thou shalt have learnt to know him—for that he is delivered over to such a fight. His face is suddenly deprived of colour, his body rises up of itself, the eyes in madness roll in their sockets and squint horribly, the teeth, covered with a horrible foam, grind between blue-white lips; the limbs twisted in all directions are given over to trembling; he sighs, he weeps; he fears the appointed day of Judgment and complains that he is driven out; he confesses his sex, the time and place he entered into the man, he makes known his name and the date of his death, or shows by manifest signs who he is; so that we generally learn that there are many of these who, according to our own memory, persisting in the worship of idols, have recently died a violent death.¹

The sixth-century French chronicler, Gregory of Tours, is also acquainted with possession and its specific treatment:

It is not uncommon that on the appointed feast-days those demoniac fall into a state of downright madness in the churches. They break the lamps, to the terror of the assembled parish. But if the oil of the lamps fall upon them the demon leaves them and they regain their right senses.²

In the seventh century it is mentioned in the life of St. Gall:

This young girl, having been held by the cruel persecution of the Old Enemy, was led to the monastery by the care of her parents, who were not of obscure origin. When she entered into the oratory of the blessed Gall the Confessor, she immediately fell to the earth by reason of the assaults of the horrible demon, and rending herself in a lamentable fashion, began to utter loud and terrible cries accompanied by the most filthy words. Then ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
• FOREWORD
• PART I THE NATURE OF THE STATE OF POSSESSION
• Part II THE DISTRIBUTION OF POSSESSION AND ITS IMPORTANCE FROM THE STANDPOINT OF RELIGIOUS PSYCHOLOGY
• CONCLUSION
• APPENDIX ON PARAPSYCHOLOGY
• INDEX